Notwithstanding this mode of life, and the supposed influence of an ungenial climate, the generality of the peasants are a fine race of people. They have no peculiar turn of features which may be called characteristic; from long intercourse with foreign nations, their blood seems to have become a mixture of many. The Eastern black eye and dark hair, the Russian blue eye and light hair, the Greek and Roman nose, and those features which distinguish the Tartars, are equally common amongst all the orders of these two nations. Both sexes are in the habit of marrying very young. They are not given by inclination to sensual pleasures; but as religion does not teach the women the propriety of virtue, excessive poverty induces them to grant their favours for any pecuniary consideration, frequently with the knowledge and consent of their husbands, or parents. In the holidays, they spend most of their time in the village wine-houses, where they eat and drink, and sometimes dance. At other times they enjoy the spectacle of bear-dancing, a very common amusement throughout the country, conducted by wandering gypsies, who teach the art to those animals while very young, and gain a living by exhibiting them afterwards. The dress of the male peasants bears some resemblance to that of the Dacians, as represented in the figures of Trajan’s pillar at Rome. Their feet are covered with sandals made of goat-skin. They wear a kind of loose pantaloon which is fastened to the waist by a tight leather belt, and closes from the knee downwards. The upper part of the garment is composed of a tight waistcoat, and a short jacket over it, of coarse cotton stuff, and in winter is added a white sheep-skin, which is hung over the shoulders in the manner of an hussar’s pelisse. The head is not deprived of any part of its hair, which is twisted round behind, and a cap is used to cover it, also made of sheep-skin, but which in summer is exchanged for a large round hat. The beard is shaved, and the whiskers alone are left to their natural growth. The women are clothed from the neck to the ancles with a long gown of thick cotton stuff of a light colour, made tight at the waist in such a manner as to render the whole shape visible. They generally go barefooted, and they cover their heads with a common handkerchief, merely meant to keep up the hair. On holidays they add to their common shift a coloured gown of a better sort: they button it up from the waist to the neck, round which they wear as ornament, one or more strings of beads, or _paras_, pierced through for the purpose. Since their emancipation, the peasants have not been fixed to particular parts of the country, and they are at full liberty to change their habitations at the end of their engagements with the landholders. But those of a more respectable kind seldom quit the spots where chance has once placed them, unless they are driven by imperious circumstances.